


Stories of the Second Self: Relic

by John_Steiner



Series: Alter Idem [161]
Category: Urban Fantasy - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:27:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22744774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: Rachel, a Cernunnos Fae had tended bar long enough to see a great deal, before and after Alter Idem. Closing the bar one early morning, Rachel and a vampire named Mikey hear a very old cell phone ring in the lost and found box. The caller, refusing to talk to Mikey, instructs Rachel on how to return the phone to them. On doing so, Rachel sees that this is less about an old phone and more about dirty secrets someone would rather not anyone else know.
Series: Alter Idem [161]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813





	Stories of the Second Self: Relic

"Hey Rachel," Mikey called out from the storeroom, "could you get that?"

"It's not our phone," Rachel said looking back from the bar counter she was wiping down.

Her five-point antlers arced over her forehead, as she returned her attention to the cleaning. On the chubby side, Rachel was a Cernunnos Fae and a sturdy six foot three. Having tended since since she was nineteen and through the worst of Alter Idem, Rachel saw things she wouldn't have imagined since dropping out of college.

"Ah, got it," Mikey said coming out of the storeroom with the phone in his hand. "Lost and Found box."

Finishing up her cleaning, Rachel turned around and remarked on its crude beeping ring, "Well, answer it."

"Nate's Bar and Grill," Mikey said casting his jet-black gaze at Rachel.

Mikey lived in an old restored mortuary, which would be odd but for being dead himself. He always wore tight tee-shirt that revealed his bodybuilder definition. Looking at the phone confused, Mikey said, "Okay, I guess they don't want it back."

"What number did they call from?" Rachel asked.

"Doesn't say," Mikey replied, studying the antique. "It has one of those old monochrome green LCD screens. Maybe it can't format modern code or something."

"Or the caller hid their number," Rachel suggested coming around to get a look.

"I'll leave it out for a bit in case they call back," Mikey said, leaving it by the register. "Hey, unless you need anything I'm going lock up the storeroom before I go."

"Yeah, I do," Rachel hurried answered, "I still gotta stay awhile and update the books. I'll lock everything up before I leave."

"Okay," Mikey said walking by her, but then stopped. "By the way, love the new perfume."

"I bet you say that to all the Beaters," Rachel referred to anyone still having a heartbeat.

"Except the donors," Mikey, heading for the back door, replied, "Makes 'em nervous. And then there's sirens, badges, and UVC lights."

"Tell Jolene and Karen I said hi," Rachel called out.

"Will do," Mikey assured. "Adios."

The moment the door closed Rachel heard the phone ring again. Having started for the storeroom, in which there was a corner stall of an office, she paused and waited for the phone to ring a couple more times.

Picking up the abandoned phone, Rachel hesitated again realizing how the dust covering it had turn turned to a grime and the formerly white plastic faded to pee yellow.

It rang a forth time.

Rachel hit the call button and raised it to her back-pointing ear. "Nate's Bar and Grill, how can we help you."

Rachel learned to say ‘we’ in taking calls at work to emphasize that she would not make an easy victim. Something Nate personally taught all new hires after some incident which happened before Rachel got a job there.

"Ah, good," a voice spoke, "Not the dead guy. Could you pull the back off that phone for me?"

"Ahh," Rachel drew out, "Are you the owner of this phone?"

"Yeah," the male voice responded, "Pull the back off."

"Who are you?" Rachel asked.

"Just... pull the back off for me," the voice responded.

"Okay," an uncertain Rachel replied.

Turning the phone over, Rachel looked for a groove or striation that might allude to a battery covering or for servicing. Finding something, she pulled at it with her thumbnail to get a hollow pop. The back panel flung off, causing her to hastily snatch it, and then she saw an address carved into the inside surface.

Rachel put the phone back to her ear, careful not to touch the device's innards. "Is this where you still live? The phone looks like it's been here for a couple decades at least."

"Could you drop it off at that address?" the voice requested.

"Why don't you just come by the bar while we're open," Rachel suggested, feeling uneasy at the likely lure. "Just tell any of the employees you lost a phone and describe it to them."

"Can't do that," the voice refused, "Look, I just need this dropped off there. There'll be an old cardboard box in an empty lot. Just drop it in that and that's it. I really need this."

"Okay," Rachel agreed, albeit slowly, and thought about the taser in her coat pocket. "Sure. I'll be leaving in a bit."

First, Rachel went into the storeroom office to enter the day's revenue and lock up the money. After, she spent around half an hour doing inventory, and then she started locking up the bar.

Once outside and the alarm set, Rachel walked to her car with hands in her jacket pockets. It wasn't that cold, but having one hand firmly on the taser was important at this hour, even in Silverton, Cincinnati. In her other pocket was the long lost phone.

Dropping off the phone at this hour seemed the worst of all bad ideas, so Rachel went home instead. Tensions were a little high after the stabbing in the fast foot restaurant and street rumors of actual trolls running around at night.

The following day, Rachel awoke at two in the afternoon. Her shift at the bar didn't start until five, so she lounged around her duplex home. On her TV she watched a rerun of a black and white show about a small town sheriff. The episode revolved around some aunt having found something after assuming it at been lost forever.

Rachel got up to get the phone out of her jacket and looked it over. She again removed the back to read the address scratched into it. Cincinnati was a changed city after Alter Idem, and still deep into recovery.

The street named in the address still had many empty commercial lots, but wasn't known for being dangerous. Silverton overall somehow quieted down faster than the rest of the city during the federal occupation.

"Okay, you win," Rachel said to nobody in the room.

Noticing the time, Rachel started getting ready for work. By a little after four she left the duplex for her car. During the drive she looked to see if any cars were following her for more than one turn.

With nationwide communication and internet not yet reestablished, the only spy story material Rachel saw semi-regularly were shows and movies that were considered old and campy back when everybody was still human. Not exactly a solid guide for urban shadowing.

However, Rachel saw nothing out of the ordinary when finally coming to the address etched inside the phone. The lot appeared to maybe have been a small store or restaurant at one time, but too little of the building's guts remained intact to know for certain. The parking lot and sidewalk were both cracked in irregular plates at different angles with weeds or sometimes whole bushes bursting forth between.

By what remained of a front entrance sat a cardboard box, as promised, waiting for the mystical phone of ancient mobile times. Rachel pulled her car to the roadside but not into the parking lot. If this were a setup for kidnapping or worse, she wanted a quick escape option.

Hastily, Rachel got out and trotted to the ruins of the establishment entrance, her hooves clopping onto asphalt and then cement. She crouched a little and dropped the phone into the box, thinking a two foot fall wouldn't hurt the thicker plastic case. Rachel held the taser in her coat pocket, and she glanced around while leaving the lost phone.

Then, a red Camaro rolled slowly by. That alone might not have been too out of place for this street, Rachel thought, but the timing was suspicious and the car unusually new looking, since the automotive industry hadn't released new car models in nearly four years.

The Camaro stopped a couple lots down on the opposite side of the street, and out stepped a man with flawless long blonde hair and a white suit. Something about how the shoulders of the suit moved made Rachel look for glassy wings, since the light-bending trait of angel feathers made them hard to see at a distance or when held still.

It occurred to Rachel who the man was after recalling a chance sighting on TV when she flipped it on one Sunday. He was Reverend Collins of the Wings of Hope Ministries.

"Awh, thank you blessed sister," Collins called out.

"Oh god," Rachel cursed under her breath, "He's gonna start that shit. Just accept his Jesus-ladened thank you's and get out, Rachel. You don't owe him shit."

Collins walked right up to Rachel and, without asking, wrapped his fingers around her hands and raised them up. "Bless you for this. I didn't expect you out here today, and just assumed you'd have left it last night, but I am so glad to meet you, my Samaritan."

"Jill's my name," Rachel lied easily enough, "but you're welcome."

"I was just telling me congregation last Sunday that we mustn't judge others by what we see," Collins chimed with his plastered-on smile.

"Right, well I appreciate that," Rachel said, inwardly wanting to punch him, but also grateful she didn't get called a horned devil right to her face. "But I gotta go to work."

"Jesus love you, Jill," Collins called out with a wave.

It was that wave which made Rachel think of the evil ghost preacher in that horror movie even though the character and Reverend Collins looked nothing alike.

Getting into her car, Rachel took out the taser while glancing at Collins still eyeing her back. "God, I should've totally tazed that pig. Why did it have to be his phone?"

Rachel pondered whether holding his phone or touching his hands most required she scrub her hands down before serving drinks tonight. If he was anything like other sleazy ministers Collins was scooping up young girls at whatever bar stood before Nate bought it. For all she knew, it could just as well have been a nursery Collins had stalked when somehow losing the archaic phone.


End file.
